California\u27s Database Breach Notification Security Act: The First State Breah Notification Law Is Is Not Yet A Suitable Template For National Identity Theft Legislation

Attacks on poorly-secured information systems containing personal information are nearing epidemic proportion. Hardly a month passes without a news story regarding a security breach that exposed hundreds or thousands of data subjects’ personal information. As dependence on e-Commerce continues to expand, personal information stolen from poorly secured systems is becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry

Qualitative study into quality of life issues surrounding insulin pump use in Type 1 diabetes

Currently, there is a need for qualitative research about how insulin pump therapy changes quality of life, which is significant to people with type 1 diabetes. This study aimed to elicit the experiences of current insulin pump users in order to discover the therapy\u27s benefits, downsides and effect on their quality of life. A qualitative approach was taken in order to reveal subjective experiences. This research will inform future research and assist with policy and guideline development by health care providers about pump therapy. Participants were briefly interviewed by telephone about their experiences of living with an insulin pump. Four questions were asked. These covered the benefits of pump use, effects on quality of life, whether participants experienced downsides to using a pump and any other issues participants wished to raise. In all, 80 insulin pump users participated in the study. All 80 reported experiencing benefits; insulin pump use had improved their quality of life. Key positive themes emerging from the data included greater control (45), flexibility (33), freedom (28), family effects (seven), convenience (seven) and independence (five). Key drawbacks emerging from the data included visibility— device (25), breakdown (17), visibility— skin (five) and cost (three). Participants overwhelmingly reported experiencing benefits and improvements in their quality of life associated with insulin pump use. These pump users remain on pump therapy by choice, so the benefits clearly outweigh the downsides. However, further work needs to determine if these downsides contribute to explaining why 2–4% of pump users discontinue pump use after a short period of time, or whether this is a result of other factors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons

Does undertaking rural placements add to place of origin as a predictor of where health graduates work?

Objective: To determine the work location (metropolitan, regional, rural and remote) of graduates in nursing, allied health and oral health disciplines who complete their professional training, end-to-end training, in a regional or rural area noting the potential inclusion of a metropolitan-based placement for speciality practice not available in rural or regional Victoria. Methods: We tracked the place of employment from the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA) of all graduates from a regional/rural tertiary education provider. The student home address at enrolment, locations where they undertook all placements and their current place of work were described using an objective geographical model of access, the Modified Monash Model. Results: Seventy-five per cent of 5506 graduates were located in the AHPRA database. About one third of graduates were working in metropolitan areas, 1/3 in regional cities and 1/3 in rural areas. Students' origin accounted for 1/3 of variance in current workplace location. The more placement days students completed in regional/ rural areas was also a significant predictor of working in a regional or rural area. Conclusion: End-to-end training in regional/rural areas is an effective approach to retaining a regional/rural workforce. Student origin is a strong predictor of working rural or regionally, as is undertaking placements in rural areas. This suggests that priority for rural/ regional student placements should be given to students in end-to-end regional/ rural programs and students from a regional/ rural background

Electrical control of spin dynamics in spin-orbit coupled ferromagnets

The mathematical symbols in the above Abstract field do not display correctly. Please see the attached 'Skinner Thesis Abstract.docx' for the full abstractThis thesis describes the control of magnetisation dynamics using electricity. Direct electrical control of magnetisation is desirable for the development of efficient scalable magnetic memories. In materials with broken inversion symmetry and spin-orbit coupling, electrical current can exert a torque on a local magnetisation. In the studies presented here, a microwave current-induced ferromagnetic resonance (spin-orbit FMR) technique is used to characterise the dynamical magnetic properties and to determine the symmetries of the spin-orbit torques of ferromagnetic layers with broken inversion symmetry. Ultra-thin ferromagnetic/heavy metal bilayers have recently become an important area of study in spintronics. Magnetic torques originating from the spin-Hall effect and a Rashba spin-orbit field have both been reported in these materials. These spin-orbit torques may allow commercialisation of magnetic random access memories with higher efficiency than previous technologies. However, the exact origin of the torques is still not well understood. In the first study of this thesis, dynamic pumping of spin current induced by an external waveguide is used to investigate the dependence of the inverse spin-Hall effect in Co/Pt on the magnet thickness. An enhancement of the inverse-spin Hall effect is seen in devices with the thinnest cobalt layers which can not be explained by a conventional understanding of the spin-Hall effect. In the second study, spin-orbit FMR is used to identify the symmetries of the current-induced torques in the same Co/Pt layers. Anti-damping and field-like torque symmetries are identified, consistent in thicker cobalt layers with origins from the spin-Hall effect and an Oersted field respectively. In thinner cobalt layers, an additional field-like torque opposing the Oersted torque appears, consistent with a Rashba origin. (Ga,Mn)As is a dilute magnetic semiconductor with a record highest Curie temperature of around 180 K. At low temperatures, large spin-orbit torques with a Dresselhaus symmetry are known to exist in the material. In the final study of the thesis, spin-orbit FMR measurements demonstrate that the broken symmetry of unannealed Ga(0.03)Mn(0.97)As can generate torques with the same Dresselhaus symmetry in an adjacent iron layer at room temperature. This enables the spin-orbit torque to be distinguished from the torque due to the spin-Hall effect by symmetry

Association between indigenous status and Body Mass Index (BMI) in Australian adults: Does sleep duration affect the relationship?

Background: Overweight/obesity is a well-defined risk factor for a variety of chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Sleep duration has been associated with overweight/obesity and other cardio metabolic and neurocognitive problems. Notably, overweight/obesity and many of the associated comorbidities are prevalent in Indigenous Australians. Generally, sleep duration has been associated with BMI for Australian adults but information about Australian Indigenous adults’ sleep is scant. A recent report established that sleep is a weak predictor of obesity for Indigenous Australian adults. Aim: To determine whether sleep remains a predictor of obesity when physical activity, diet and smoking status are accounted for; and to determine whether sleep duration plays a mediating role in the relationship between Indigenous status and BMI. Methods: Statistical analyses of 5,886 Australian adults: 5236 non-Indigenous and 650 Indigenous people aged over 18 years who participated in the Australian Health Survey 2011–2013. Demographic and lifestyle characteristics were described by χ2 and t-tests. ANOVA was used to determine the variables that significantly predicted BMI and sleep duration. Stepwise regression analyses were performed to determine the strongest significant predictors of BMI. Sleep duration was self-reported; BMI was calculated from measurement. Results: The study revealed two main findings: (i) short sleep duration was an independent predictor of obesity (adjusted-R2 = 0.056, p <0.0001); and (ii) controlling for sleep duration and other possible confounders, Indigenous status was a significant predictor of BMI overweight/obesity. Sleep duration played a weak, partial mediator role in this relationship. Increased BMI was associated with lower socioeconomic status and level of disadvantage of household locality for non-remote Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Conclusion: Indigenous status strongly predicted increased BMI. The effect was not mediated by the socioeconomic indicators but was partially mediated by sleep duration

The effect of yoga practice on glycemic control and other health parameters in the prediabetic state:A systematic review and meta-analysis

A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of yoga on glycemic control, lipid profiles, body composition and blood pressure in people in the pre-diabetic state. Studies on the effectiveness of yoga on population groups under high risk for diabetes, called prediabetic or suffering from metabolic syndromes were extracted from a thorough search of PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, EBSCO and IndMED databases. Both Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) and non-RCT studies were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. Studies published between Jan 2002 and Dec 2018 were included. Studies were considered for evaluation if they investigated a yoga intervention to prevent T2DM, against a control group, while also reporting glycemic control and other health parameters of T2DM management. Summary effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software in addition to publication bias. Of the 46,500 identified studies, 14 studies with 834 participants of whom were 50% women, were found to be eligible for inclusion in our systematic review. Our quantitative synthesis included 12 randomized control trials and 2 non-randomized control trials, with the follow-up period ranging from 4 to 52 weeks. Compared to controls, yoga intervention improved fasting blood glucose (FBG) [Standard Mean Difference (SMD -0.064 mg/dL (95% CI -0.201 to 0.074)]; low density lipoprotein (LDL) [SMD-0.090 mg/dL (95% CI -0.270 to 0.090)]; triglycerides [SMD -0.148 mg/dL (95% CI -0.285 to -0.012)]; total cholesterol [SMD -0.058 mg/dL (95% CI -0.220 to 0.104)] and systolic blood pressure [SMD -0.058 mm Hg (95% CI -0.168 to 0.053)]. This meta-analysis uncovered clinically improved effects of yoga intervention on glycemic control, lipid profiles and other parameters of T2DM management in prediabetic population. These results suggest that yoga intervention may be considered as a comprehensive and alternative approach to preventing T2DM. Further adequately powered, well designed RCTs are needed to support our findings and investigate the long-term effects of yoga in T2DM patients